The First Sin
by Margrace
Summary: Unshackled from the island, Benjamin Linus seeks something other than salvation and finds a taste of it in the arms of an anonymous lover in London.


_The First Sin_

There's a special kind of cruelty in living a life of opposites. Sadism. More so when self-inflicted, by belief, by faith, by hope, by fear. Be born a man who thrives for his senses to wake, the sensualist, hungering for contact, the touch of soft lips or warm fingers, the presence of breath. Be sworn by his own will to an ascetic's life in the service of a god unseen.

He hides it well, Benjamin Linus, but it's visible when he's watched close. When he talks, the hands reach. When he rages, the hands flail and the fingers grasp for purchase. When someone steps close, he draws away. He knows this weakness, and he reviles himself for it. Even as he hungers for the weakness to be realized and someone reaches back to touch.

But they never do. So he pushes back.

_Juliet, _his mind whispers now and again to him, hissing temptation in silent places that he can't quite exert total control over, and his eyes will darken at the thought. Rejected. He hates – but not her. She bears the brunt of it, blood cooling on her dead lover, but it's not her he hates. Just himself, his life, and his solitude. _You're mine! _A lie, but he carried it then as if hoping it were a truth. Now he leaves her alone. Mostly. It's she that troubles him in the dark hours when he sleeps and he can't and he lies still and cold and untouched. _I'm like a corpse_, he tells himself, but that's not true, either. Corpses don't feel pain and, much to his despair, he still does. Frequently, inside and out.

So when he later sits, forlorn exile, on Tunisian sand, contemplating his next move even as he knows where the first of the Six can be found, he's alone, hungry, and already damned. Daughter dead, Juliet lost, Annie forgotten, mother... _no, don't think on that._

No god watches his steps, no thought of Jacob's care, no boundaries, no more is he in service.

Yet he would go back in a second. He'll try. He'll try on all the bones of the six who left, if that's what it takes.

Better the island's damnation than the outer world's notion of salvation. What's he owe the carpenter's son that he hasn't already paid to the faceless?

He'll crawl there, if he's got. Over the ocean floor and shattered shells, trash and the lost, but he'll do it on his own time and in his own way.

Meanwhile. He can live.

~*~

As he travels, he considers the touch of a whore and can't bring himself quite to it. It isn't what he wants. He doesn't want the lie they grant, though he wants the flesh and the warmth and the rest that comes after. Just not that way. It doesn't seem quite right, like it won't touch the real hunger he has. Secretly he suspects nothing will, and yet he doesn't want to fall quite so far as that. He wants to leave a little room in the pit to climb out of. Just in case. He can always change his mind.

Instead, he lurks through London, hunting a different thing even while he dogs at Widmore's heels. He leaves notes for Charles, like a mad lover bent on murder. In a way, he is. No lover but death's, and his fingers itch if not for flesh then for a trigger's cold steel. He can't. So he moves on, but not too far away. Security's increased at the corporation, at Widmore's lofty little apartment home, but it doesn't keep Ben out. By day he moves through checkpoints and office lobbies, looking for more ways to meddle with his old enemy, and by night he moves through the bars.

Soho dives where the music pulses like primal screams and jungle drums. Familiar but uncomfortable. The clientele is younger and he doesn't fit. The heat of the bars fills his face and it leaves him feeling defenseless. He leaves quickly, unnoticed, and he's thankful for that much. A mistake to go there. Perhaps when he was younger, but it's far too late for that. It's not a mask he can wear.

On another night, Brixton's better. The energy is similar to what he's left behind, but more welcoming. Young college students and energized couples and travelers who know to get away from what the tour guide tells them while still being sensible. Reggae thumps from open pubs, the smell of spices and hair and the musk of people. It's easier to get lost there, eyes drift over him seeing some dark professor or well-dressed traveler and leave him be. He buys a woman a drink, doesn't catch the name, doesn't ask. Her accent says American, but he leaves it at that. It may be she's hunting for something similar, dark eyes looking at him but not looking too close, and he follows her to her nearby hotel after the pub slows down.

Her skin is soft and tan, a light mocha, or beach sand in a banyan tree's shadow, and she doesn't remark on his awkwardness when they get into her room. It bothers him anyway, his fingers feel thick and fumbling against her clothing, but the last thing in the world he wants to do is stop. His lips press against her stomach, feeling the warm softness and smelling a clean musk and sweat and want, and for a second, that's enough. He takes more, though, of course he does, and when he takes her entire he feels lost. Awkward. He fears she will be unsatisfied, but she doesn't complain when they're done and she falls asleep against him with a speed he envies.

It isn't what he sought, but it'll do. He's still hungry and still alone, and when the dawning light creeps onto the matted carpet floor, he slips from her room with the silent grace of the long-dead ghost. He leaves no note, no name, no trace of himself behind – well, beyond what breath and sweat he can't control – and pays her room for the remainder of her visit. Cash exchanged, and the desk clerk takes a long look at the mild, unassuming face and sees the message there: _Do not remember me._

Nothing's changed where Widmore walks and the day is mild and sweet. It doesn't rain, the first such day since he's arrived, and he takes the omen as best he can. He takes the first flight to anywhere, wherever, it doesn't matter. Sayid's oath is his and the others walk in his stalking shadow whether they know it or not. It's a perverse pleasure, an echo of the power he held on the island, and it's a comfort. Meanwhile, the world is open to him, and it's all downhill from here. He accepts his damnation again and again, and thinks of all his lost girls.

As he flies away on a British Airways flight, he sleeps lightly, unconcerned. He dreams, dark skin and blonde hair all mixed up in vague wisps of want and memory. He'll never have what he really wants, but he'll keep hunting for a taste of it.

For Benjamin Linus, there's all the time he can take.


End file.
